The most common stereotype of furniture movers involves of burly fellows who lift refrigerators and pianos and carry them down three flights of stairs. Often they are pegged as not being terribly careful with your cherished heirlooms and keepsakes, bashing into walls while remaining blissfully unaware of the scratches and dents amassing on Grandma’s curio cabinet or that eighteenth century rocking chair. For the most part, however, a reputable furniture mover will handle your beloved items as if they were his own.

The furniture mover does move furniture, but that is only a part of his job description. The vast majority of furniture movers work for moving and storage companies, and thus are dealing with an entire home’s worth of furniture, appliances, and boxes. While a furniture mover will come to your home to relocate individual items – such as moving a billiard table from the upper floor of a home to the basement – the largest percentage of his tasks revolve around the packing, inventory, loading, transporting, and unloading of your worldly possessions. It is a job that is neither easy nor simple.

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Before a furniture mover ever lifts a single table, he will go through your home and apply numbered stickers to each and every packed box, appliance, and piece of furniture. These items will be written on an inventory list. The movers will keep one copy, and another will be given to the customer. After the customer reviews the list and signs off on it, the moving process begins. In some cases, if the customer has paid for the extra service, the movers will have packed the boxes themselves, carefully padding all items to avoid the possibility of breakage.

Then the moving begins, with the furniture mover wrapping thick blankets around any items that might be scratched or scraped. All items are put on a truck, and securely tied and strapped so they don’t jostle in transit. In most cases the furniture mover will also be the truck driver, transporting your goods across the street, across town, or across the country. Upon arrival at the intended destination, the movers will unload the truck and carry the items into your new quarters.

At this point, the moving process operates in reverse. Both the customer and movers mark each numbered item off their inventory sheets as they are removed from the truck. If all goes well, and it usually does, everything from silverware to double-door freezers will arrive on time and intact.

Discuss this Article

Calvin77Post 5

@zeak4hands - It's good to do a lot of the packing and most of the moving. The only movers I used are small furniture movers. I've always lived in apartments so I really don't have that much to move around with me. The only reason I get movers is to move my bed and couch around, since I just have a car.

I've never had any trouble with movers before -- but I don't collect a bunch of breakables. They always swoop in, box everything up and move it. The only things I really care about are my entertainment equipment -- so I stuff it all in my car.

zeak4handsPost 4

Anything small you really, really care about you might want to just shove into the back of your car. I had several plates and my favorite lamp broken the first time I moved so now I always shove my favorite things in my car. Movers aren't always as careful as they could be.

While packing, make sure you use a ton of padding. I used a Sunday newspaper to wrap a set of tea cups and a whole roll of bubble wrap for my pig figurine collection. After everything was carefully packed, I put in huge red letters on the top “BREAKABLE.”

My last move went pretty smoothly, but I moved a lot of my breakables myself. Better safe than sorry, I say. Especially when it comes to keepsakes and heirlooms.

minthybear19Post 3

Packing before the furniture movers get there is a good idea. It saves you the stress and worry of knowing if they packed everything correctly. Just make sure to label everything that is breakable -- then if they break something, there's no excuse.

Of course, if you pack right and make sure they do too -- everything should go smoothly. I stayed and made sure they packed everything. They are much less likely to get careless if you're standing there watching them.

I've moved a lot in my life and I'm had good and bad movers. Anytime I have to move, I ask around about who does what best before I hire any. Cheap furniture movers aren't always the best.

sneakers41Post 2

@SauteePan - I know what you mean. A friend of mine moved around a lot and she just rented a U-Haul truck and rented a furniture mover dolly and did most of it herself with the help of a few friends.

She said that it was time consuming, and it would have been nice to have a local furniture mover do this for her but she wanted to make sure that everything was handled with care. She did not want to take a chance and her friends did not mind helping her.

If it were me, I would have gone with professional movers because I would not have wanted to burden my friends and I think that packing boxes is enough moving work for me. Besides most of these furniture moving companies know what they are doing and I don’t want to hurt my back trying to lift something that I shouldn’t lift.

SauteePanPost 1

My mother-in-law hired some professional furniture movers to move her stuff from Savannah to St. Augustine. While most of her items arrived intact, there were a few of her expensive Lladro figurines that were broken.

I told her that these types of items are best handled by her and that she should have put them in her car. I personally would only used a furniture moving company for my larger heavier items that I don’t want to mess with myself.

Things that have sentimental value and are important to me will be better off going with me. Why take chances?

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